With Yogi’s passing, the end of an era — when sports heroes were like you and me

I’m really sad about Yogi Berra’s  passing.

You already know the long list of wonderful things about Yogi, so I won’t repeat them here.  An extraordinary friend, husband, athlete, and businessman.

What makes me most sad is that Lawrence Berra wasn’t really extraordinary at all. He was a downright ordinary human being. He was little.  He worked summer jobs, even after “making it.”  He spoke like us – most of the time. He might be the last world-famous athlete we’ll ever see who was one of us.

When Ted Williams first saw Yogi, he said, he thought his chest protector would hit the ground, Yogi was so short.  He looked no more like a future MVP than the security guard who probably stopped him at the Yankee Stadium entrance asking for ID.

Yogi was special, of course. By the time he was left his teen-age years, he had already quit school to help support his family, and fought on D-Day to help support the Free World.  He’d already done more than most of us will in out lifetimes.

He had great skills — he set the record for home runs by a catcher, broken by the venerable Johnny Bench. But Yogi’s best quality was his ability to be a teammate.  He was masterful at handling pitchers, the most underrated part of any baseball team’s success.

He was a masterful teammate until the end.  Yankee announcer Michael Kay bawls every time he tells the story of Yogi visiting Phil Rizzuto when the former Yankee shortstop — and fellow regular guy –was dying in assisted care.  Yogi went every day and played cards with Phil, because he knew he was scared.

He was 5-foot-7. He was a giant.   But more than that, he could have been you and me.  

Yogi wasn’t an Adonis. He wasn’t a 7-footer. He obviously wasn’t ‘roided up.  He probably wasn’t even picked first in gym class at anything.  But he made it.  And anyone watching Yogi could think, or in good conscience tell their children, you can make it too.

Sports are different now.  Children become “professionals” before they reach  puberty.  Pitchers who  don’t throw 90 mph by age 14 are discarded.  Athletes are creations of science and data.

Yogi, we all know, was a creations of the heart.  That’s why we all love him. He was …normal.

Baseball is far different from other sports.  One reason: It is incredibly democratic.  Every defender also  gets to hit.  Everyone gets a turn.  In basketball, defensive specialists go entire games without taking a shot. In hockey, too. In football, well, there are entirely separate teams for offense and defense. But in baseball, the last can become the first.  The least has the chance to be the greatest.  And we see it often — long games are determined by the last player on the bench, who gets a surprising hit and a day in the sun.  Baseball brings us incredibly moments of underdog heroes, more than any other sport.

Baseball is actually designed for such magic.  It is designed to give everyone a chance. It’s designed so Yogi can become a hero.

I wonder now, in baseball and in America, what chance Yogi would have were he an 18-year-old today?

Full disclosure: A dear family friend, Fr. Tim Shugrue, was pastor of Yogi’s Catholic Church in Montclair for many years.  I have even more reason than many of you to know how normal, and kind, Yogi was as a person.  Decades after he had won the last of his record 10 World Series, he was touching people’s lives every single day.

I will miss him.